IDEA Complaint Decision 05-059

On November 22, 2005, the Department of Public Instruction received a complaint under state and federal special education law from XXXXX against the Racine Unified School District. This is the departments decision regarding that complaint. The issue is whether the district, during the 2005-2006 school year, properly implemented a students individualized education program (IEP) regarding maintaining safe activity environments.

One of the goals in the students current IEP specifies that the specially designed physical education emphasize safety. The corresponding benchmark further states that it is extremely important that the activity environments used for participation are made as safe as possible. The school where the student attends has not been able to use the school gymnasium for the specially designed physical education because of a broken folding door that divides the gymnasium into two separate spaces. The district has solicited bids for its repair and the door is scheduled to be repaired this year.

The folding door is necessary to ensure that the student is safe in the gymnasium from balls used by multiple other classes. Consequently, pending repair of the folding door, other spaces have been used for providing the specially designed physical education. During this time, staff has worked to ensure that the spaces and the activities conducted within them are safe. The students IEP has been properly implemented.